Joseph Marie Terray

Joseph Marie Terray ( Abbé Terray, * 1715 in Boën -sur -Lignon, † 1778 in Paris) was a priest and French finance minister under Louis XV. of France.

Life and work

The father of J. M. Terray Terray was Antoine (1662-1727), his mother Anne Dumas de Matel (* 1661), both married since 1705.

Terray, the. Due to the promotion by René- Nicolas -Charles -Augustin de Maupeou, the Chancellor of King Louis XV 1769 became the Finanziminister to a catastrophic state of public finances faced. The inherited by King Louis XIV bankruptcy had succeeded despite several attempts can not overcome (such as the founding of the Banque Générale by John Law ), so that the country was politically, militarily and culturally dominant power on the continent, in a constant payment crisis.

Terray had on behalf of the French state back the payment of a portion of the French sovereign debt. These so-called Repudiationen procured the state, along with the renegotiation to be paid by the tax farmers lease amounts greater financial flexibility. He also gave the Treasury more revenue by controlling the grain trade. In the political field he ran in 1770 the overthrow of foreign minister Étienne- François de Choiseul, by showing the plans for a war against Britain as priceless. His success in increasing government revenues brought a considerable opposition against him with it. Louis XVI. therefore dismissed him immediately after he took office.

Importance

Terray formulated the thesis, the eternal duration of the state make it necessary to take this once every 100 years the bankruptcy on all his debts declare to restore its balance sheet (see below Manes, p 31). Its hardness in the debt of the state was by historians of the 19th century referred to as one of the causes of the outbreak of the Revolution (see below Gomel, p 30), he himself as "a man whose name will go loaded over the centuries with a curse and shame; a clergyman of boundless immorality, but a great worker and incredibly finished speaker met with considerable financial talent "(see below Niebuhr, p.134 ).

Quote

"Your Majesty, I find them - Priceless " ( On the question of the king, as he found the Palace of Versailles and the local festivals. )

Swell

• Uwe Schultz: Versailles. The sunny side of France. 2002
• Alfred Manes: sovereign defaults. Economic and legal considerations. Berlin 1922
• Charles Gomel: Les Causes de la Revolution Francaise financières. 1 band. Paris 1892
• Mark Niebuhr: History of the Age of Revolution. Hamburg 1845